My Jeff Hardy Articles
by Lally
Summary: SHORT STORY - Written in the style of a magazine article I once read about Elvis Presley.


I met Jeff Hardy for the first time when he was just 17 years old. I'd interviewed many wrestlers before, none of them anything special, but there was something in this boy. I approached him, not looking for an interview, just a quote to add to an article. He was standing in a corridor in the Air Canada centre. His appearance wasn't remarkable, a gangly teenager, with floppy blond hair. The only physical feature which attracted attention were his green eyes. They were filled with an eagerness to please, a trait that he managed to carry of without losing self-respect and without the risk of being taken advantage of. But there was something else behind those eyes. A spark, something special, which said, "Keep an eye on me. One day I'm going to be big."  
  
Anyway I got my quote and I left him to it. I didn't see him again for another 4 years. This time it was an interview I wanted with Matt, his brother, and Jeff, The Hardy Boyz. His appearance was, to say the least, striking. He was no longer a gangly teenager, but a well developed man. Gone were the floppy blond locks, to be replaced by long blue hair. His body had filled out, developed muscle, which was displayed through his netting top, complimented his furry pants. That spark was still there, brighter than ever as we sat down. As I conducted the interview it became obvious that Matt was the more boisterous and bossy of the two brothers, barely letting Jeff speak. Jeff seemed to get disheartened by this, the spark becoming just a pilot light. I wanted to ask about the relationship between the brothers, but it didn't seem relevant to the interview and would have been unprofessional to breach. To my satisfaction the opportunity later arose when I found Jeff in the canteen and he invited me to sit and have lunch at his table. The conversation danced its way across many different subjects before making its way to Matt. I was surprised to hear Jeff word the fact that Matt was the one who had come up with wrestling as a future career for the brothers. I asked him how he felt about it. I remember his reply, it came with a shrug. "I can be myself for the fans here. I can't normally be myself, people get scared." He said it with a laugh, but there was the feeling that there should have been sadness in its place. The conversation continued reaching Jeff's love life. He told me he was seeing this great girl, Beth. He seemed genuinely happy to be talking about her. His facing lighting up like a neon light. I was pleased to end the meeting on such a good note.  
  
The next time I had the pleasure of meeting Jeff Hardy he was 24 with an impending wedding. He admitted to me that it had really been Matt's idea. I asked him if he actually wanted to do it. "Sure, I guess, I mean I would've asked her at some point, but Matt said I should do it now." I was disheartened to find that even at the age of 24 Jeff was still relying on his brother to plan his life and future. I wasn't sure whether it was a weakness he showed towards his brother, or an inability to look to the future himself. The majority of the time he seemed happy with the arrangement, but that just made it weirder. He invited me to his wedding, but I was unable to make it. I didn't see him again for 4 years, until once again our careers crossed paths. He had recently turned against his brother and I was keen to know if this was a storyline or real life. I met him in a hotel lobby and we headed to the bar to talk. I was shocked by his appearance. He had put on a lot of weight, mostly muscle, and was obviously twitching with surplus energy. We spoke for a while, but I couldn't shake the feeling that he was in character. He told me Matt was trying to run his life too much, and was always telling him what to do. He said he'd had enough. I wanted to ask 'of what?' I felt he was speaking double truths. He'd had enough of Matt, maybe he'd even had enough of wrestling, or life. He seemed to be incapable of sitting still, or concentrating. He couldn't wait to get to the gym.  
  
A fortnight after my interview with Jeff it emerged that he had been suspended from the wwf, for taking drugs. This didn't surprise me, but I found the following article disturbing. It explained how the brothers had been having a friendly competition over who was the better wrestler, but neither of the brothers had been willing to give in. In a bid to win the competition Jeff had become addicted to a form of adrenaline, which gave him the energy to work out for hours on end without tiring. The argument between Matt and Jeff escalated to a higher level when Matt tried to stop his younger brother from taking the drugs, fearing, rightfully, for his health. Jeff believed that his brother was trying to prevent him from winning their competition and ignored his pleas to stop. He even ignored the pleas of Beth, her departure doing nothing to change his mind. The article became more disturbing as it described how Jeff would suffer if he didn't desist from taking the drugs.  
  
The final time I saw Jeff was on his 29th birthday. His once slim, and then muscular body had now turned to waste as the real effects of the drugs had hit. The left corner of his lip was drooping and his speech was slurred. He was deeply depressed and seemed to know his time was limited. "This'll be our last interview," he told me. The interview was mainly light-hearted, neither of us wanting to talk about the darker stuff. Too light-hearted, I was told by my editor, and the article was never published. We only strayed onto deeper stuff later, off the record. He told me he'd screwed up. He'd been too scared to be himself for the world. "I've lived an act. My world was just a stage. No one ever met Jeff Hardy, 2 people got to know Jeff Hardy, and neither of them liked what they saw." Jeff died 2 months later from a heart attack. 


End file.
